Romanian Businessman Dinu Patriciu Wins Trial Against Intelligence Service

The court rejected Monday the appeals filed in the case as ungrounded, and the sentence may be challenged at the Supreme Court.

On January 20, the lawyer of the Romanian Intelligence Services, Valeriu Stoica, asked the Court of Appeals to cancel the ruling of the Bucharest Court.

On May 11, 2007, the Court decided that the right to privacy was broken in the case of Dinu Patriciu and obligated the Services to pay moral damage of 50,000 lei (EUR1=RON4.2450)

Former justice minister Valeriu Stoica said at that time that the service was not proven guilty of the accusations Patriciu made, and the institution had not done anything illegal, as it was executing orders.

Patriciu’s attorney, Ovidiu Budusan, brought new evidence to the file and replied that the Intelligence Services was the one to ask for tapping authorization from the prosecutor, and did not act as an administrative institution.

The trial was suspended for eight months, as exceptions of unconstitutionality were raised.

In October last year, the Constitutional Court decided article 2 – section 2, article 7, article 25 – section 1 and article 34 – letter j of Law 182/2002 on the protection of classified information and articles 3 and 13 of Law 51/1991 on the national security of Romania are constitutional.

The trial began mid-February 2007, when Patriciu’s attorneys filed a complaint at the Bucharest Court against the Romanian Intelligence Services on the tapping for several years of Patriciu’s phone conversations.

The lawyers claimed $1 million in moral damages.

 

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